The wine glass challenge

As the dark nights, and sometimes afternoons, draw in, I am mostly thinking of whether I have the energy to invite people round for dinner. We definitely owe some return entertainment, but it’s not the cooking I worry about, it’s the wine glasses!

11.11.2017

As the
dark nights, and sometimes afternoons, draw in, I am mostly thinking
of whether I have the energy to invite people round for dinner. We
definitely owe some return entertainment, but it’s not the cooking
I worry about, it’s the wine glasses.

A quick
glance in the cupboard reveals a sorry state. There are four
differently sized wine glasses. There’s one resembling a bucket on
a stick that could probably accommodate an entire bottle of wine.
There’s a smaller, thin-necked glass. There’s a little round bulb
on a short stem. And there’s a plastic Crémant ‘glass’. They
must have all had companions at some stage, but now they stand
forlornly, the last of their kind.

The
obvious and easiest solution would be to nip to IKEA and buy a six
pack of utility wine glasses, but the clever person who designed our
kitchen made every cupboard just that bit too small for any of the
Swedish stock.

I’ve
also come to realise at quite a late stage in life that chucking wine
into any old glass is not really the ‘done’ thing. Though I’ve
swigged Chinese champagne and some incredibly rough desert wine in a
tin mug (no, that’s not a spelling mistake – the latter really
does make riding a camel easier), I know I have reached a stage in
life when it’s time to take the wine glass challenge.

And
what a challenge it is, though – there are so many types. You’ve
got your flute, your tulip, your coupe, your hock and your tumbler.
You need different glasses for Burgundy, Bordeaux, Chardonnay,
Riesling and Sherry.

I
discover that the large bucket on a stick is meant for a full-bodied
red wine. The rounder, smaller glass should be used for lighter red
wines, the smaller, thinner-necked glass for white.

Why,
precisely? Well, because thinner glasses preserve the floral aromas
of white wines and keep the temperature cooler for longer. The
larger, more open-topped glasses for reds burn away the ethanol that
give it a rough taste, so it slips more smoothly down the throat. The
glasses for Sherry and Port are teeny not to keep your grandmother
from getting tipsy at family gatherings but rather to prevent the
alcohol from burning off.

Despite
the extremely complicated sound of all this, I decide to try it out.
I pick a nice Riesling and pop it in the smaller, thin-necked glass.
The only aroma I get is that of petrol, but the wine does stay cold
for longer. It’s not hard to find a quality, cut-price Bordeaux in
this country, so I test out the bucket-on-a-stick glass. Sure, the
wine tastes good, but that’s probably because I’ve drunk half a
bottle in just one glass.

Wine
has its secrets

According
to Forbes – which, when it’s not fretting over share prices,
likes to run articles on wine glasses – Austrian hand-blown Zalto
glasses are the best for learning "all the little secrets" from a
wine. I’ve never thought about getting any secrets from a wine. I
always thought it was you, not your glass, who gave away all your
little secrets after imbibing. So, if the grapes could talk, what
would they say about the goings on in the Moselle Valley?

Eventually,
I decide I am not cut out to take wine this seriously. Plus, I don’t
have enough space in my small house to store several different sets
of glasses. The standard bulb-shaped glass on a sturdy stem will have
to do.

If wine is best supped from a specific glass, does the
same hold true for beer? Orange juice? Water? More important, since
the festive season is almost upon us, should I be glugging my glüwain
from a mug, a fish bowl, a glass slipper … or just straight from
the bottle?